wrestled with the angel, he said unto him, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob" (which signifies a supplanter), “but Israel" (which means a Prince); "for," adds the angel, "as a Prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed 1." And when Naomi returned to her native country in the midst of affliction, she said to the men of her city, "Call me not Naomi (which signifies fair and comely), call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me 2." When the Prophet, therefore, announces to his countrymen that the "name" of this Branch of the house of David shall be "The Lord our Righteousness," he intended to express, and would be understood by his nation to express, that such would be the character and office of him whose advent he was proclaiming in such solemn terms; and surely no name could more distinctly convey a just impression of the character of him who bore it, than that which the Prophet assigns to him in the words of the

1 Genesis xxxii. 28.

2 Ruth i. 20.

He is

text-"The Lord our Righteousness!" It expresses, in truth, in one brief sentence, the sum and substance of the Gospel. In the first place, he is our "Lord" our King and Master, both in a temporal and spiritual sense. our Lord by Creation-" by him all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made1." He is our Lord by Redemption; he has purchased us to himself to be his subjects and people; and, as head of the universal Church, he is the Lord to whom every member of it must bow and obey.—In the second place, he is emphatically 66 our Righteousness." He became sin for us, that we, through him, might become righteous. All our righteousness, therefore, is from and through him. It is by his merits that we escape punishment; it is by his grace that we are purified; it is through his mediation that we shall finally be rewarded. Such is his abundant title to be called "The Lord our Righteous

1 John i. 3.

ness." And wonderful indeed is the consideration that the language of prophecy should, so many hundred years before the event, have painted with such accuracy, and in the form of a simple name, the peculiar, and even now unfathomable character, of the great Redeemer of mankind! We wonder that the Jews should have been blind to this truth-let us take care that the same blindness do not in part happen to ourselves. Let us remember that their evidence was only prophecy, and therefore of doubtful interpretation1; while what was prediction to them, is history to us. We can read, in one volume, the prophetic account of what was to be the character of the Saviour of the world, and, in another, the historical narrative of what was his actual character while on earth. We find the two to correspond with each other in a most remarkable manner, and perceive that "the testimony of Jesus is" indeed "the spirit of prophecy "." If, then, the Jews were cast off for rejecting one branch of this testimony,

1 Acts xiii. 27.

2 Rev. xix. 10.

how shall we escape, if, with both before our eyes, we venture to disbelieve, or, believing, to disobey the Gospel? "If he that despised Moses' law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace 1?”

Among other evidences, then, of the truth of our holy religion, let us, whose duty it is to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good, by no means neglect that which is drawn from the language of prophecy. It is evidence which cannot lie, and which is beyond the ingenuity of man to invent. "Prophecy came not of old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"." To such language, then, it is our bounden duty

to attend; for it affords the best proof that our religion is indeed divine. It was to the word of prophecy that our Saviour himself constantly appealed for the truth of his mission. "Search the Scriptures," said he to the Jews who doubted; "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which TESTIFY OF ME1." They do indeed testify of him, to an extent which, the more it is considered the more does it awaken our astonishment and reverence. They describe him in language at first sight the most irreconcilable and contradictory. Attributes and offices are assigned to him which it would seem that no single individual could ever exemplify and unite. The Jew might often be tempted to ask, with the Ethiopian Eunuch," of whom speaketh the prophet this?" when he met with the most opposite traits of character, all professing to concur in the formation of one great Deliverer, the suffering and triumphant

1 John v.

39.

2

Acts viii. 34.